Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a26091060/money-millennials-parents-career-success/

by prostoalex • 7 years ago

154 199 7 years ago

Isamu• 7 years ago

She told me, “I was curious, but I don't know how a single person in America who doesn't have family money could buy anything, I really don’t, if they're not working in finance or they're not a doctor. ”

Easy, there are vast areas of America where housing is more affordable. I certainly got zero cash from family when I bought a home. My family put money into giving me food and shelter growing up though.

This is kind of like that cartoon of a New Yorker's view of the US, where Manhattan looms large, then there's New Jersey, and at the fringes there is the rest of the nation.

ForHackernews6• 7 years ago

The places with cheaper housing also tend to suffer from a dearth of employment options. There are probably a few mid-sized cities out there that have both cheap housing and decently-paid jobs, but I imagine they are few and far between.

I don't know how legitimate this source is, but

ATTOM points out that home prices are climbing faster than wages in 80% of U.S. markets. In fact, median home prices increased at a faster pace than average weekly wages in 601 of the 755 counties analyzed in its report.

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/47878-home-prices-are-r...

JoeAltmaier• 7 years ago

They are pretty common. Kansas City. St. Louis. Des Moines. Dayton. And that's just the Midwest.

You don't need a great job market; you just need the one job. Works for some people.

greedo• 7 years ago

I live in a midwest college town. Unemployment here is extremely low, has been for decades. Housing costs are relatively low as well. I live in a house that in the Seattle area would be over $1M. I paid 20% of that. There are multiple startups for tech here, as well as government jobs, college related jobs, and other industries. So there's no dearth of employment options. If something were to happen, I can commute an hour to a city with a population of 1M.

smt88• 7 years ago

I certainly got zero cash from family when I bought a home.

Crucially, this is not the least help your family can offer.

For many (most?) people in the world, their relatives are actually insecure and need financial support. This is a key reason the cycle of poverty can't be broken by one person getting a good job.

I know multiple people who would've easily had a down payment on a house if their parents hadn't lost pensions/savings in the financial crisis.

Several years later, that $100k they used to bail out parents would've grown to $300k+ in equity if they could've bought a house in a city between 2009 and 2012.

latencyloser• 7 years ago

This reminds me of when I was working at Microsoft and a colleague said to me: "I don't know how anyone raises a family off less than $130k/year." I laughed and asked him if he'd ever been anywhere in the US outside of Seattle before. Turns out, he hadn't and assumed the insane cost of living we're subject to in this area also exists in the rest of the country.

My point of reference is my family's house in a rural area that is about 2x the size of mine (the property is 10x) and costs 1/3 as much. I wish my career as a software engineer better enabled this type of living but, alas, my corporate overlords require I am ass in desk every day in a metro area.

blueboo• 7 years ago

And so the legend goeth: A friend exclaimed, "how do you afford to buy a house in San Francisco?" I, too, laughed! For lo': huts in the wilderness were mere pennies. He hadn't ever been to the bush, and had assumed the insane cost of living in this area exists in other places with high-paying tech jobs.

duxup• 7 years ago

My first trip out to the valley working for a company out there someone turned to me and asked "So what do people do out there?" I thought he meant "for fun" but he meant regarding jobs or a career.

Despite the fact that I did the same job he did... "out there".

AboutTheWhisles• 7 years ago

The same extrapolations happen with population density. People in LA and New York think the world is overpopulated and everyone is on top of each other. They don't realize that 45 minutes north east of San Francisco there are no houses, no street lights and no cell phone reception.

cableshaft4• 7 years ago

Between the cost of daycare, health care/insurance, pet care, car payments and maintenance, student loan payments, and then a mortgage (even a cheap mortgage) on top of that, not to mention saving something for retirement, forget the 10x your salary by the time you retire or whatever, and once every 2-3 years go on a vacation at least to the next state over, I do sometimes wonder how households can make ends meet on less than $100k a year, and have no idea how a household can get by on the average $60k a year.

I know living in certain areas are a lot cheaper, but the salaries are usually a lot lower in those areas as well.

Not to mention get married (wedding costs are insane, going through that right now) or other life events.

We make more than that, have no children, and we're still shuffling money around to make it all work. I can't wait to finally pay off my student loans in a couple of years. My fiancee might never get hers paid off, she's barely making a dent in hers.

Consultant324523• 7 years ago

Exactly. I live in a 2nd tier city. My friends who are home owners have very middle class blue collar jobs. Examples include auto mechanic, security system installer, and local delivery truck driver. None of them got "help."

ForHackernews6• 7 years ago

How old are they? I know plenty of people who bought a house 30 or 40 years ago on blue collar salaries. I don't know any <30 year olds who bought property without parental help.

ben509• 7 years ago

Responding to your quote: Working in finance, I can report that we do not have magic money machines.

You could narrow "finance" to mean professional traders who do extensive market research and take large risks, sure, they make a lot of money, but they also get wiped out periodically.

They're not very different from other entrepreneurs who make a big investment into their area of expertise and takes big risks, often failing many times along the way.

That is pretty much the "self-made" story, and one thing I do see working in finance is that most people are way too risk averse for it. That's not a bad thing in aggregate, the conservative majority's instinct for stability is an important buffer against all the breakage the risk takers cause.

CPLX• 7 years ago

I'm not saying it's an easy job, by any means, but there's not a ton of risk involved in taking an entry level job at an investment bank and trying to work your way up to MD or similar. And that track most certainly pays plenty well, even if you doin't quite get as high as the boardroom.

stcredzero2• 7 years ago

She told me, “I was curious, but I don't know how a single person in America who doesn't have family money could buy anything, I really don’t, if they're not working in finance or they're not a doctor. ”

This is kind of like that cartoon of a New Yorker's view of the US, where Manhattan looms large, then there's New Jersey, and at the fringes there is the rest of the nation.

I met this veteran taxi driver in South Carolina who had bought a big Federal era house north of the state capital, for only $20,000 back in the late 90's. Everything about the house needed fixing, and there was no heating/ventilation equipment functioning at all. He was living there, however, and he was putting all of his extra money into buying construction materials, so he could eventually sell it for 20 times as much. I also knew a waitress/barista in Ohio who had bought a duplex, was living in one half, and renting out the other. She had done all of that on $5/hour plus tips and sweat equity. Both of the above examples happened in the 90's.

This Kirsten Dirksen video is basically a documentary about how homeowner's interests and their affect on local laws have basically ossified our society. (This is set in Sonoma, which is not overcrowded in the least.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8x4CWBMsPg

Basically, homeowners have thrown up roadblocks to keep "the wrong element" out of their neighborhoods, which also locks out the young people of their own group. The big irony is that this happened much more in liberal California than it did in conservative Ohio and South Carolina.

gamblor9562• 7 years ago

The big irony is that this happened much more in liberal California than it did in conservative Ohio and South Carolina.

Not sure where you've come up with this bizarre and selective understanding of US history. Ohio is notorious for racially-based restrictive covenants on housing. There were entire neighborhoods where deeds had restrictions preventing their sale to blacks. They got the idea from southern states like South Carolina. These restrictions are still on many of the deeds in Ohio and South Carolina, though they are no longer legally enforceable.

TuringNYC• 7 years ago

> I certainly got zero cash from family when I bought a home.

For a lot of wealthy friends, this was the case, they were self made (first order) and paid their own way (first order). The really valuable thing they received was the safety net and contacts such that they werent exposed to the spikes of unfortunate things that can happen. For me, if I cant make mortgage for 6mo, i'd be in trouble and there is no family member to help out. There is no uncle at a hedge fund who can suddenly get me a job. I'm in the general pool of candidates and only have those opportunities and the ones I create myself.

That makes be reach less, it made me take more conservative jobs earlier on in my career, etc. My risk tolerance and hence potential rewards go down

wardbradt• 7 years ago

Are you talking about "View from 9th Avenue" [1]? If so, that is a great analogy because it depicts no housing in the rest of the country.

[1] https://condenaststore.com/featured/view-from-9th-avenue-sau...

norswap• 7 years ago

"why do millennials act like it doesn't exist?"

Hhm, do they really?

jccalhoun• 7 years ago

That was my first thought. What makes any of the article unique to millennials?

es72• 7 years ago

I see these types of articles way more than I hear fellow millenials discussing being 'self-made'. It seems almost trendy these days to try to point out all the ways that successful people just got lucky or substantial assistance.

It seems highly related to this trendy idea that all people are fundamentally equal in all forms of capability, except maybe where poor diet hindered education or something.

Individuals vary tremendously, and that's all luck too. Nature+Nurture. Everyone gets something from their parents:

Personality is 40-60% heritable* IQ is 50-80% heritable

So around half of who you are comes from who your parents are. The rest is luck. Even before you're born. My point is that every single person is basically 100% a combination of inheritance and luck. Maybe that inheritance is good genes, good parenting and money or maybe it isn't. Maybe in that context, a 15k loan isn't that big a deal. Maybe it is. Either way, it's counter productive to pick out a single aspect or two of a person and dismantle their success because they had THAT particular advantage.

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5068715/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

awakeasleep• 7 years ago

I understand the use of 'millennials' as click-bait, but when a serious author tries to tie 'millennials' into some larger explanation of sociology I just have to stop reading.

What the hell is going on in [the author]Jen Doll's head where she thinks that the myth of self-made success is a millennial phenomena? Does she suffer from amnesia? Is this just 4000 words of disinterested bullshit to get paid?

samwhiteUK• 7 years ago

Yes. Her writing career is unreliable, she said so herself. She has to take every opportunity

ip263• 7 years ago

I came away from this feeling like it's a very short jump from "Maybe some of the people doing impossibly well got help" to "Everyone who is doing better than me must have gotten help".

I can't help but feel this element of dismissal is present even in this piece. E.g., Pierson turned a $15,000 loan into a business with $300,000/yr in revenue. She says, her biggest fear was hearing “she’s only successful because of her parents.” And this piece seems to suggest, or at least gently lead, the reader in that direction- ignoring the many many people who turned $15,000 loans into failed businesses.

captainbland• 7 years ago

Sure, it's impressive enough to turn $15k into a profitable business but most people could only take that plunge once or maybe twice, realistically. How many successful businesses were started by people who could do that ten times or a hundred times? Or more pertinently: how much of the market has been captured by such people? That's the real differentiator.

zachsnow• 7 years ago

ignoring the many many people who turned $15,000 loans into failed businesses.

As far as I understand it, most (VC-backed, tech) companies that raise millions of dollars manage to turn the money into failure.

mikeash• 7 years ago

Turning a $15,000 loan into a successful business is certainly a big accomplishment that does not warrant dismissal. On the other hand, is it not true that this success depended on her parents? How many people out there are capable of doing what she did, except they would never have access to a $15,000 loan in the first place? We can acknowledge that the deck is stacked without blindly dismissing those who succeeded with the deck stacked mildly in their favor.

malvosenior2• 7 years ago

I think I found the problem:

"Take a look around you at the lives you envy, the ones that make you boil with resentment, or fill you with insecurity about your own subpar existence: That adorable Brooklyn brownstone or chic-but-rustic upstate home; the career that YOU want (and you should have, what are you doing wrong?); the impeccable wardrobe; the mid-century modern furniture; the international vacations; the time spent flitting between gorgeous hotels or going to boutique fitness classes or (seemingly) not working at all."

Do people really envy others like this and make themselves miserable over it? Other than the time not working, that list reads like pure hedonism, much of which is probably best avoided all together.

I also don't think it's such a mystery as to who has come from money and who hasn't. Hint: poor people aren't freelance writers living in Brooklyn and they know those who are come from a different class altogether (since they probably don't even value half of those things).

dahfizz• 7 years ago

I am constantly surprised at people's inability to imagine that other people lives are different than thier own.

Just because real estate is expensive in the center of a big city doesn't mean it's impossible to buy a house anywhere in the entire country.

Just because you can't support yourself as a writer doesn't mean nobody can support themselves no matter what.

Just because you got free money from your parents doesn't mean everyone gets lots of free money from thier parents.

the_gastropod• 7 years ago

Yes! This. People get a really distorted view of reality, hanging around people earning 6 figure salaries, spending 90+% of them. Even in major cities, the median salaries are typically in the ~$50k range, and people do live and raise kids just fine. Instead of wondering how they do that, people tend to just throw up their hands, and declare it's impossible.

arwhatever• 7 years ago

The increasing prevalence of this type of material really rankles me. I fear that it just provides the uninitiated fodder to rationalize their lack of initiative.

jxramos2• 7 years ago

Isn’t there a stat that says something like at most 10% of millionaires inherited their money/assets. The rest were supposedly “self made”

treyfitty• 7 years ago

This article goes a little deeper in exploring the definition of "self-made." Did those millionaires who didn't inherit money have their college paid for? Did they get help from their parents for a down payment? ...etc. The author makes a valid point by exploring this definition, and it suggests that most people, especially the well off received some substantial help that isn't available to many.

jxramos2• 7 years ago

There's an interesting exchange Milton Friedman has about the inheritance of social capital https://youtu.be/hoFdVuqrMZw?t=3928 The video cuts off an interesting follow up exchange

"""FRIEDMAN: Well, the major source of inheritance is the inheritance of human qualities not of physical assets.""" https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/friedman_images/Collection...

He talks about the inheritance of talent here https://youtu.be/YRLAKD-Vuvk?t=650

I think in all the exchanges he makes a point about how none of it is fair, just as much as an inheritance of a negative hindrance of some kind also isn't fair. I think another person would play as, "there's no cosmic justice"

radmuzom2• 7 years ago

Resonates strongly with me. Many of my school friends went to the best colleges in my country - all the time attributing their success solely to "hard work". However, they always seemed to ignore the fact that their parents paid a lot of money for them to attend the best tuition outside of school. I did not have that option and did not get admitted to any of the famous colleges (I am discounting the constant mental tension associated with poverty here). Luckily, I have done quite well for myself (till now) - but I am under no illusion that it was solely due to me. For example, I got my first data science job via a personal contact - without that I would forever be stuck in less paying jobs.

Edit: typos

dev_dull3• 7 years ago

I did not have that option and did not get admitted to any of the famous colleges (I am discounting the constant mental tension associated with poverty here). Luckily, I have done quite well for myself

Rather than confirm the articles premise you seem to be discrediting it.

yunyu• 7 years ago

I received much better financial aid offers from top schools than the local state university. While the ability to pay tuition definitely is a factor, keep in mind that many students do not pay even close to sticker price.

dragontamer• 7 years ago

Different states have different amounts of financial aid. I fortunately have a state school that is highly ranked in Comp. Sci.

My family didn't get much financial aid, but I managed to put mostly on a loan and pay it back afterwards. I do realize that having a family rich enough to disqualify from financial aid is the "advantage" this article is probably talking about...

But still, it wasn't like it was easy to take the SAT like 5 or 6 times through practice regiments. Memorizing word-lists from 3 different "SAT-word list books" to master analogies / reading sections was incredibly rigorous, it was the hardest studying I ever did in my life. By the end of the program, I memorized well over 20,000 "difficult words" over a period of 6-months to improve my SAT score (and promptly forgot about them after the test). Its not easy to do.

There were plenty of other people in my SAT Prep classes who were unable to score as high as me... and there were plenty of people I know who worked harder than I did and scored higher than I. So there is certainly something to be said about "self-driven effort".

But I fully recognize that my family's values and money helped me achieve what others couldn't. I also know of friends who were unable to afford multiple test-prep classes year after-year during high school... multiple years of "Kumon Math", and other such extracurricular after-school academic classes. Only now as an Adult do I realize how expensive all those after-school test prep classes are.

------------

There's give and take for sure. The opportunity is money-driven, but the achievement is still personal. All the money and test-prep classes in the world won't help if the child is disinterested or lazy.

arendtio2• 7 years ago

Well, your school friends might know some people who went to the same schools but weren't as successful because they were 'lazy'. Ergo their 'hard work' is what differentiates them from those people (on the last mile). You, however, look at it with a different scope.

ralusek3• 7 years ago

So why do millennials act like [financial help from parents] doesn't exist?

I would argue the exact opposite. I would argue that with the rise of socialist tendencies among millennials, and the hyper fixation on gender, racial, and economic privilege, there is almost an outright rejection of the existence of merit at all. I think that the position is so extreme, that many millennials believe the output of an individual belonging to a group they consider to be universally privileged is almost entirely the consequence of their group's privileges or disadvantages.

No person in their right mind wouldn't acknowledge the privileges we can be afforded. You can be tall, attractive, smart, have both parents at home, not need to work jobs to help your parents take care of your many siblings, have parents that don't abuse you, have access to a network of successful people willing to take financial risks on your behalf. These things are inconceivably helpful. There is a reason that the public's reaction to Donald Trump's "with a small loan of a million dollars and [inheriting my dad's business and network]" was almost unilaterally one of repulsion.

Most sane people don't object to the concept of individual privilege (inherent, universal group privileges are a different discussion). What people object to is the disregarding of merit altogether; the extent to which we are divorcing consequence from actions. Where you start matters, but so do the choices you make.

learc832• 7 years ago

Where you start matters, but so do the choices you make.

Of course it does...but the single largest predictor of future income is parental income.

I would argue the exact opposite. I would argue that with the rise of socialist tendencies among millennials, and the hyper fixation on gender, racial, and economic privilege, there is almost an outright rejection of the existence of merit at all. I think that the position is so extreme, that many millennials believe the output of an individual belonging to a group they consider to be universally privileged is almost entirely the consequence of their group's privileges or disadvantages.

And I would argue that this is the right-wing clickbait version of millennials. Not that people like this don't exist, but that their size and impact has been vastly exaggerated.

People don't have a problem acknowledging privilege.

That doesn't match my personal experience with people.

ralusek3• 7 years ago

Most people don't have a problem acknowledging individual privileges they have been afforded. People object to broad assumptions made on their behalf by using their race or gender as a proxy.

anthony_romeo2• 7 years ago

For someone who claims Millenials' opinions are extreme, you are using some rather charged language and making some very broad generalizations of questionable accuracy.

darawk17• 7 years ago

This is such nonsense. First of all, there are absolutely people who come from dirt poverty and become wildly successful. Second of all, plenty of people receive lots of help from their parents and amount to precisely nothing. IMO it's fair to refer to your success as "self made" if you exceed the median success level of your class peer group by a substantial margin.

If you immigrate from Africa with nothing, and you get yourself a law degree and an upper middle class income - that's self made success. If you're born in the US and your entire family is lawyers, maybe that same accomplishment is not "self made success". But if you say, start Microsoft and become a billionaire i'd say that it's fair to call that self-made success.

I feel like this trope that self-made success is a myth comes almost entirely from people like the author of this article. People who were born with lots of advantages, who still couldn't hack it. They want to justify their own failure to live up to their family's expectations by tearing other people down. Whether or not self-made success is a thing, self-made failure certainly is, and i'd say the author of this article more than qualifies for it.

radmuzom2• 7 years ago

Down-voted for such a strong word - "nonsense". See my other comment [1]. I am as self-made as anyone can be, with a very high standard of living in my country without taking even one cent from my parents beyond a certain age. But all that is because of one stroke of luck - I am proud of the fact that I was able to use that luck to my advantage but under no illusion that all my success is due to me alone.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19200621

darawk17• 7 years ago

The fact that you did not do whatever it is that you did without any modicum of help or luck does not mean you are not self-made. You can take credit for your accomplishments. It's ok. We don't have to live in a binary, all or nothing world. You can acknowledge that you got lucky, while simultaneously acknowledging that you were smart and hard working to achieve whatever it is that you have. Maybe in your case it was entirely due to luck, but I seriously doubt it.

ip263• 7 years ago

Even the superheros in the movies are permitted a little luck occasionally. "Only people who had the worst possible luck at every turn may be considered self-made" or similar is a ridiculous goalpost-moving standard. Next we'd be sitting around a table competing over who faced the most hardship to be considered legitimate.

I was able to use that luck to my advantage

That's what counts.

EpicEng2• 7 years ago

But all that is because of one stroke of luck - I am proud of the fact that I was able to use that luck to my advantage but under no illusion that all my success is due to me alone.

I would call you fortunate, not lucky. You didn't fall sideways into your success; you were given an opportunity and _you_ made the most of it. Many others may not have done the same.

We all owe a part of our success to _some_ number of external factors, but go deep enough and it gets absurd (e.g. we all owe our success to irrigation because, without it, we'd be subsistence farmers.) Seeing an opportunity and pouncing on it is not the same as being handed a trust fund and a full ride to Harvard.

koolba• 7 years ago

But if you say, start Microsoft and become a billionaire i'd say that it's fair to call that self-made success.

Bill Gate’s family clearly contributed to his and Microsoft’s success. His mother in particular had direct contact with the chairman of IBM which lead to a scrappy software company landing a life changing contract.

I’m not saying that to discount the rest of his achievements or effort either. The greatest among us not only have the drive, the intuition, and put in the work, but they also seize upon opportunities when they come knocking.

If it were not his mother and instead a friend’s mother or father that had similar contacts, I have no doubt that Bill Gates would have been just as successful. He would have found that nut and cracked it one way or another.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates

beaner• 7 years ago

Not everyone, if put in Bill Gates' shoes, would have been able to take advantage of such an opportunity. Can you say that if you were there, you'd have done the same? And executed as well afterward, into a multi-billion dollar company?

darawk17• 7 years ago

I totally agree. What I disagree with is the people that want to dismiss Gates success completely because his family had some money. Tens of thousands of kids have the same background that he did, but don't do anything half as incredible as starting Microsoft. While Gates should acknowledge the advantages he's had, I don't think it's unfair or unreasonable for him to feel pretty good about what he's accomplished.

mountainofdeath2• 7 years ago

I mean, nobody is saying that it doesn't exist. What people are saying is that the majority of it is an illusion. It's easy to take risks when you have multiple levels to fallback to. I've worked with both backgrounds of people in the same group and there couldn't be a starker difference in attitudes.

darawk17• 7 years ago

Sure, but lots of people are born rich and don't go anywhere. Yes, it's helpful to have something to fall back on, and yes, successful people from well off backgrounds should acknowledge that fact. But it doesn't mean that their accomplishments aren't their own.

foldr6• 7 years ago

IMO it's fair to refer to your success as "self made" if you exceed the median success level of your class peer group by a substantial margin.

Even if success were 100% down to luck, there'd still be people who exceeded the median success level of their class peer group by a substantial margin. It's begging the question to simply assert that a majority of these people can fairly claim to be "self made".

darawk17• 7 years ago

Ok, then, calculate the t-statistic of your income level with respect to your starting cohort then, if you want to be rigorous about it. I think my point stands.

fzeroracer4• 7 years ago

Do you have an argument against the authors points that does not consist of adhominem and projection?

The self-made illusion is precisely that because we ignore the many things that gave us a headstart in life and allowed us to do the things that would've caused other people to fail. The only reason why I'm here now is because I took on a risk of going bankrupt moving across the country for a job opportunity in an industry that suddenly became very volatile. Had I been laid off or had the winds shifted and resulted in my first job being downsized, I would've been financially destroyed and dropped right back into poverty. We ignore the sheer amount of luck and circumstance in our career and lives in favor of telling a story where we're the hero.

darawk17• 7 years ago

Do you have an argument against the authors points that does not consist of adhominem and projection?

Did you read the first part of my comment? Literally the first two paragraphs are exactly what you're asking for.

The self-made illusion is precisely that because we ignore the many things that gave us a headstart in life and allowed us to do the things that would've caused other people to fail. The only reason why I'm here now is because I took on a risk of going bankrupt moving across the country for a job opportunity in an industry that suddenly became very volatile. Had I been laid off or had the winds shifted and resulted in my first job being downsized, I would've been financially destroyed and dropped right back into poverty. We ignore the sheer amount of luck and circumstance in our career and lives in favor of telling a story where we're the hero.

The fact that luck is involved does not make being 'self-made' an illusion. You're probably an intelligent person, if this opportunity would have blown up for you, you'd have done something else.

ip263• 7 years ago

There's always an element of chance in success. Every new business was a risk. Every move across the country a bet. Every new product a gamble. To say, "well I/he/she just got lucky" I think ignores that fact.

Sports are perhaps a good allegory. Sports always have chance & luck. But the best teams have a track record of tilting the odds consistently in their favor, by working to minimize chance and making the most of luck. Does anybody actually say "Well the Patriots/Yankees just got lucky"?

fireflash382• 7 years ago

I feel like your response here is only against the title, not the content of the article, since your complaints are explicitly addressed in the article.

darawk17• 7 years ago

They're mentioned. They're not addressed.

throwaway-12832• 7 years ago

Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, and Spiegel all came from wealthy families...

honkycat2• 7 years ago

First of all, there are absolutely people who come from dirty poverty and become wildly successful. Second of all, plenty of people receive lots of help from their parents and amount to precisely nothing.

There are way more people who are born wealthy and continue being wealthy. There are way more people who go from poor to poor. Social mobility is piss poor right now in the US.

If "having a nice family and a wonderful house and a great life" is amounting to nothing, I will take it.

If you immigrate from Africa with nothing, and you get yourself a law degree and an upper middle class income - that's self made success. If you're born in the US and your entire family is lawyers, maybe that same accomplishment is not "self made success". But if you say, start Microsoft and become a billionaire i'd say that it's fair to call that self-made success.

First of all, Bill Gates had a TON of opportunity and privilege funneled to him from his parents.

Second of all, we are not talking about Bill Gates or Elon Musk. We are talking about the legions of Bradleys going from Georgetown Prep to ivy league schools to finance to the executive class.

You cannot POSSIBLY believe that there is no wealth disparity in the US? That there is not a disparity in opportunity between the wealthy and the middle class/poor?

I feel like this trope that self-made success is a myth comes almost entirely from people like the author of this article. People who were born with lots of advantages, who still couldn't hack it. They want to justify their own failure to live up to their family's expectations by tearing other people down. Whether or not self-made success is a thing, self-made failure certainly is, and i'd say the author of this article more than qualifies for it.

This is just completely unfounded. You think this entire discussion is propped up by other failed millionaires?

I can't speak to this person's reason for writing the article, but the reason the "self-made success is a myth" is a trope is that people SEE the research, SEE the disparity around them, and smell the bullshit.

natalyarostova2• 7 years ago

First of all, Bill Gates had a TON of opportunity and privilege funneled to him from his parents.

He absolutely did. And yet even conditional on that category, the probability of becoming a billionaire is extremely low. Therefore, according to the parent comment, that counts as self-made.

You cannot POSSIBLY believe that there is no wealth disparity in the US? That there is not a disparity in opportunity between the wealthy and the middle class/poor?

You're not following the parent comment's argument, and as a result your response isn't targeted at their specific point. Their specific point is invariant to wealth mobility. Even if you give me an extremely extremely unequal society, their definition of self-made success persists: The ability to exceed the median expectation for your category.

If you're born dirt poor in a slum, and end up running a small laundromat, whereas most of your peers are still scavenging in the slum, you're self-made, because you beat your peers. If you're born as a privileged white kid to millionaires, but end up becoming a billionaire, you're self-made.

Having morally invariant definitions for words is useful, because it's nice to have terms to describe things, without having to stop using terms because they offend peoples moral sensibilities.

Your argument that self-made success literally doesn't exist in any facet, and all is deterministic, so we should never use that term or consider it a phenomena, strains credulity, and makes it hard to describe certain elements of reality.

simonsarris2• 7 years ago

[some person] had a TON of opportunity and privilege funneled to him from his parents.

What percentage of those persons became billionaires? Is it less than 0.1%?

(What percentage of them die broke? I bet greater than 1%)

mindcrime2• 7 years ago

There are way more people who are born wealthy and continue being wealthy.

OK. But that still doesn't translate to the idea of being self-made being a "myth". There are existence proofs that it is possible to be a "self-made success" - depending on exactly how you define "success".

One thing that's important to keep in mind is that all these references to various billionaires, etc., are mostly irrelevant. For most of us, the benchmark of being "successful" is not becoming a billionaire. So the question of "can you become a self-made billionaire" is really a red-herring that contributes nothing useful to anything.

smallgovt4• 7 years ago

There are way more people who are born wealthy and continue being wealthy. There are way more people who go from poor to poor. Social mobility is piss poor right now in the US.

Can someone please point me to a study that supports this claim? Based on the Pew Charitable Trust's latest economic survey, 57% of people born into the lowest quintile rise above it. And, 60% of people born into the highest quintile fall below it.

See Figure 3: https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwpe...

I just started digging into the research surrounding economic mobility in the US, and it does not seem to substantiate the claim that the poorest class are just absolutely screwed.

ataturk• 7 years ago

Which billionaires came from "dirty poverty?" List them, please.

Extra credit: I'm a lowly millionaire, how do I get a seat on a Board of Directors? I have a PhD, 20+ years in the technology field. Am more than qualified for any kind of corporate governance role, etc.

tzs• 7 years ago

Rex Sinquefield comes to mind. Also Howard Schultz. Oprah Winfrey. Leonardo Del Vecchio.

Maybe Kenneth Langone, Sheldon Adelson, and John Paul DeJoria.

mindcrime2• 7 years ago

Exactly. When you buy into the "everything is luck, blah, blah" mentality then you have a built-in excuse to let yourself off the hook. You can be as lazy as you want, and when you fail, you can explain it away as "well, I wasn't lucky enough, aww shucks."

Whereas if you believe that you can build yourself up through effort and exertion, and believe that those things are the primary factors in your success, you have no excuses if you fail. You might still fail, but at least it won't be for lack of even bothering to give a sincere effort.

And I don't know about you guys, but I'm OK with failing if I fail for reasons that are totally outside of my control. What I'm not OK with, is failing because I didn't make a sincere effort within the scope of the things that I can control.

refurb3• 7 years ago

Exactly. The logic of this argument seems to be: luck is involved in being successful, therefore personal effort plays no role at all. It makes no sense.

I like your measure relative to what you were born into. Didn’t get enough to eat when you were a child and are now a millionaire. Self-made!

Born into a millionaire family and turned that into a billion? Self-made!

I’m personally thankful the tall poppy syndrome isn’t that common in the US. I’d hate an environment where success is looked down up. No, being rich isn’t everything, but if that’s what you want, I’m happy you found it.

EliRivers• 7 years ago

If I was born poor, and then someone gives me a bunch of money, by this argument I am self-made.

rchaud2• 7 years ago

If you immigrate from Africa with nothing, and you get yourself a law degree and an upper middle class income - that's self made success.

A student from Senegal who attended my alma mater now works in Wall Street. In an alumni issue, he described what it was like to go from his tiny village to the capital city in Senegal for an interview for a scholarship at a prestigious international school (where his grades got him another scholarship for college). He described hitching multiple rides just to get to the city, and needed to borrow heavily to pay for the flights once he was admitted.

He named many families and community leaders from his village that he says were instrumental in helping him on that first major step. Where he is today wouldn't have happened without the trust and support of fellow community members. They made sacrifices so he could achieve a dream and eventually repay them.

"Self-made" means different things to different people.

darawk17• 7 years ago

Are you trying to say that this Senegalese fellow would be remiss to describe his own success as "self made"? Sure, people helped him, but he worked extremely hard, and overcome tremendous odds to get where he was. I think he deserves credit for that. Don't you?

ska• 7 years ago

Relying on "self made person" as a model for success and economic mobility is very much like relying on "win a lottery" as a model for retirement planning. The fact you can find a few people for whom it worked is not a reflection on its viability in general.

CodeMage2• 7 years ago

I feel like this trope that self-made success is a myth comes almost entirely from people like the author of this article. People who were born with lots of advantages, who still couldn't hack it. They want to justify their own failure to live up to their family's expectations by tearing other people down.

And there we go. That kind of attitude is why this trope was created initially.

The problem people have with "self-made success" trope is that the self-made success story of someone with severe disadvantages is being equated, on an astoundingly regular basis, with the success of people with substantial advantages. That's how Bill Gates and Arnold Schwarzenegger are both dubbed "self-made" successes, despite their rather different histories.

Even worse, it is being used to justify, defend and perpetuate inequality, by convincing everyone that the American Dream is that "anyone can make it". After all, if such-and-such person coming from dirt poor origins could become wildly successful, anyone can. Therefore, we must strive at all costs to avoid removing "incentives" that motivate people to reach for that elusive success.

Naturally, this will generate resistance, and rightfully so. Despite the endless propaganda that permeates the fabric of our society, the self-made success story of Bill Gates is not the same thing as that of John Paul DeJoria.

So yeah, I agree with you in one aspect: the self-made success is not a myth. It's something much worse -- it's propaganda.

It brings to mind that quote by Anatole France: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

darawk17• 7 years ago

The problem people have with "self-made success" trope is that the self-made success story of someone with severe disadvantages is being equated, on an astoundingly regular basis, with the success of people with substantial advantages. That's how Bill Gates and Arnold Schwarzenegger are both dubbed "self-made" successes, despite their rather different histories.

They are both self-made success stories. Schwarzenegger even moreso than Gates.

Even worse, it is being used to justify, defend and perpetuate inequality, by convincing everyone that the American Dream is that "anyone can make it". After all, if such-and-such person coming from dirt poor origins could become wildly successful, anyone can. Therefore, we must strive at all costs to avoid removing "incentives" that motivate people to reach for that elusive success.

Anyone can make it. Not everyone can be Bill Gates or Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it is abundantly clear that anyone willing to put in the time and effort can make it into a well compensated profession. Software engineering, medicine, law, these are all things that an average person willing to dedicate themselves can learn and excel at. If you come from nothing, i'd say getting into any of those professions more than qualifies for "making it".

heedlessly3• 7 years ago

Oprah Winfrey is the best example of self-made success.

Black woman born to an unwed single teenage mother, grew up in the projects to a billionaire.

danans3• 7 years ago

IMO it's fair to refer to your success as "self made" if you exceed the median success level of your class peer group by a substantial margin.

"self made" isn't a statistical or legal term. It's a term of culture and art, and it is always employed by people through a subjective lens, whether to themselves or others.

Trying to impose a statistical definition on it ignores the history of its use up to the present, whether that use was justified or not.

i'd say the author of this article more than qualifies for it

The fact that you are willing to apply a statistical measure for "self-made success", yet despite how little you know about the article's author, you are willing to apply a term like "self-made-failure" to them based on your personal feelings of antipathy toward a particular class of people, indicates that you might not be arguing in good faith.

anthony_romeo2• 7 years ago

Perhaps the real message ought to be that we all live as part of a broader continuum wherein we are all recipients of the privileges and hardships of the past, and as a consequence of that reality we ought to have better empathy for all of our brothers, sisters, and otherwise.

IMO arguing whether people are 'truly' self-made is a discussion of semantics. Calling people self-made or not doesn't change the actual timeline of actions and events of an individual’s life.

gamblor9562• 7 years ago

If you immigrate from Africa with nothing, and you get yourself a law degree and an upper middle class income - that's self made success.

Ah. The law professors did absolutely nothing, I suppose? Or the law firm that hired an immigrant that may not have had an understanding of US professional norms? Or the US, which let the immigrant into the country to pursue their dreams of success while relying on taxpayer-funded social services?

This trope of the "self made success" conveniently ignores that people are reliant in many ways on the efforts of others for their success. All those peple who rose from dirt poverty to become successful? Read their stories. At some point, they all relied on someone taking a chance on them--and without that chance, they'd be no different from the thousands of others of dirt poor people who never made it.

Tomminn• 7 years ago

Your first two paragraphs make a very important point. Outliers from every cohort exist, and often it is due to a kind of inner drive, and we should not ignore that truth. Your final paragraph is cruel. From every cohort the vast majority of people in that cohort will end up with around the mean outcome for that cohort. This is a statistical fact. Only a few can be outliers, and expecting everyone to be one is mathematically guaranteed to cause suffering in the world.

RankingMember• 7 years ago

Just because there are dirt poor people who are successful and well-off people who aren't doesn't mean they're equally likely. To your broader point, no one person exists in a vacuum- one person's "self-made" is another person's "took advantage of the right tax incentives and business climate and, most importantly, had the luck of timing that they were successful instead of plunging themselves deep into debt". My experience with people who talk warmly of "self-made" people is that they tend to leave out the role of luck.

isoskeles• 7 years ago

So is this entire article about how some successful people got help from parents? (And therefore, all must have gotten help from their parents.) Seems pretty easy to cherry-pick the stories you research and write about here.

Let me skip all the way to the end, spoiler alert:

If you have the privilege of not having to pay 50 percent of your rent because your parents are paying, how can you advocate for interns to make a decent-enough salary, or for scholarships to support an intern or fellow? That’s where the change comes in.”

I don't understand this thesis. These are the exact type of people who would advocate for "decent-enough salary" because money comes to them for free. The magical thinking required to just demand decent-enough salaries are thrown about by businesses (or other authority figures) that must have bottomless pockets looks very similar to how they think about getting a free ride from mommy and daddy.

Can we find examples of people who get free money from their parents and openly say that everyone else needs to pull themselves up by the bootstraps? I think "Trump" might be the only person others will respond with, cynically at that, given I don't think Trump has said such a thing--he's just a Republican. But otherwise, where are all these trust-fund babies who believe everyone else needs to be a self-made person? Those people don't exist as far as I know.

smallgovt4• 7 years ago

I think a more interesting question to ask is: Why do we care who is responsible for our success?

Is it so that we know how to engineer more success? Or, is it to validate our egos? And, if the latter, aren't we asking the wrong question?

ls6122• 7 years ago

We care because if a lot of people don’t believe they can succeed they will generate substantial social unrest, which has often ended poorly throughout history.

smallgovt4• 7 years ago

But this article is working in the opposite direction -- attempting to take people's ego down a notch and convince them success is not a result of their agency.

I get the feeling that the article is steeped in a value system based around the ego. But, if we take it for granted that the ego is important, shouldn't we be happy when people have elated egos? Why try to bring them down?

And, if we don't agree that the ego is important, why even ask these questions to begin with?

bwang29• 7 years ago

It’s not just about the money, there is also the intangible experience when it comes to information and family education. I’d argue that will put an even a stronger influence on a kid’s mindset so if a parent is giving a 15k loan to a child it doesn’t mean the kid isn’t helped significantly to bootstrap her otherwise. On the contrary, it feels even more like a status symbol of demonstration from the parents to illustrate to society how confident they were about the kids paying the loan back.

ryandrake• 7 years ago

A recent study from Merrill Lynch and Age Wave reported that 79 percent of the parents surveyed are providing financial support to their adult children, at an average $7,000 a year

Wow, this can’t be right. I mean I’ve had friends whose parents paid for their university and stuff like that, and mine helped me a little bit with tuition at a cheap state school, too, for which I’m grateful. But ongoing financial support, year after year? And 4 out of 5 parents? Yow! Guess I’m naive, but I had no idea it was that common. Maybe age is part of it. I was lucky enough to go to uni before the days of 6 figure student loan debt.

I know exactly one adult whose parents pay for all their bills, including rent. We’re friends so I give him hell about it. “You’re a grown-ass man with a decent job. Let mommy and daddy retire already!” I think once you start down those tracks and get used to the “extra funding” lifestyle, it’s hard to get off the train.

DigiMortal• 7 years ago

Yeah I am a bit surprised, though I do see many of these examples around me. I have several peers into their late 20's receiving support, many in the NYC area as well.

My parents put a roof over my head, valued education, helped with most all of my tuition for undergrad (over 100k), I have 7k of student loan debt left to pay off and I am 26. Right now, I am only left on their phone plan, which I just venmo my dad monthly for, 50 bucks for unlimited on Verizon and I bought my phone off of Swappa for 200 bucks (I recommend Swappa as well, save your money)

I've also seen parents feed junkies, so there's that. I don't understand the ones not working, yet going out all the time, no money management, doing drugs....parents sending money... WHY?!?!

bedhead• 7 years ago

The author clinging to a 100% literal translation of "self made" is mind-numbingly stupid.

jonbarker3• 7 years ago

So the author's parents encouraged leverage by subsidizing a down payment on real estate, an asset class which underperforms index funds. The story doesn't seem to end well; it is probably self correcting in the long run.

briandear• 7 years ago

Real estate underperforms index funds? Perhaps in capital appreciation, but in terms of cash on cash returns, nothing beats real estate. If you can turn a $50k downpayment into a $250k property netting $300 per month after mortgage/expenses, plus get capital appreciation on top of that — you’ll make far more money on that $50k than the same money invested in an index fund. Statements such as “indexes out-perform real estate” might be true for an owner-occupied residence, but it certainly isn’t true when the real estate is an actual cash-flowing investment and not your own residence. What people fail to grasp is that a $250k house doesn’t cost $250k in cash. It costs $50k in cash. While the bank owns the other $200k in value, that $50k gives you control of that asset and the cash flow that comes from it. If that $250k house goes up to $300k in value, then you just earned a 100% return on your cash plus the cash-flow revenue. Even if the house goes down in value, if you are still cash flow positive, you are still making money. A $300 net per month is $3600 per year which is a 7% return on your $50k cash, however on top of that 7%, you also get a “free” house since your tenant is paying the note and expenses. On top of that, you get depreciation, which in many cases can make that $3600 per year tax free when the depreciation exceeds the income from the rent.

Indexes outperforming real estate is a highly simplistic view and doesn’t accurately reflect cash on cash returns, tax advantages and cash flow. $50k in an index vs $50k as a down payment on a cash flow property— the property is going to make as much in cash as your entire capital appreciation for the index. For an index to be better, it’s going to have to both appreciate at a higher rate than the house as well as pay dividends equal to the annual net from the house.

Comparing indexes and real estate shouldn’t discount the value of leverage, nor should it discount the cash flow from the asset. (In the situation you are commenting on though, the author buying a residence, I don’t disagree; I am commenting on real estate as an asset class in general.)

lotsofpulp2• 7 years ago

$50k downpayment on real estate has a lot more risk and a lot more work than $50k in an index fund, hence the possible higher return. It's up to the investor to determine their risk profile and whether or not they want to invest time in buying and selling real estate, finding and dealing with good tenants, maintenance issues, liability issues, spending time figuring out tax incentives and/or spending money on accountants.

There is no guarantee that property values will go up, or even stay stable. Ask the people in NJ/CT/IL/KY and other non-booming places facing skyrocketing property taxes and stagnant home sale prices. Who knows, maybe an earthquake erases all those plump west coast gains tomorrow. The index fund investment is placing bets on economic activity as a whole, not picking winners and losers of real estate markets.

jonbarker3• 7 years ago

The annual net from the house you live in I guess is arguably the benefit of living in it. Hard to compare that with the dividends produced by an index. The dividends produced by the index can be used to pay rent, for example.

jonbarker3• 7 years ago

Also, I was speaking from a leverage standpoint. If someone is worth less than the value of a house, and finances most of it, then they have effectively put their personal balance sheet book value into negative territory, effectively making an ROE calculation very ugly in the near term. The scenario described above is just the effect of leverage, not the fact that said leverage is applied to real estate.

Kiro• 7 years ago

This is objectively false. I know a lot of successful people who haven't had any help whatsoever, starting with $0 and building their later successful business on the side while working full-time. In fact, I barely know anyone who had their rent paid by their parents at all (since that seems to be the argument here).

throwaway-12832• 7 years ago

Can we stop talking about "millennials" like we're still kids? I'm pretty sure by definition "millennials" are almost 40.

dev_dull3• 7 years ago

It's really quite amazing to see the attacks lately against successful people. I can't help but feel we're being prepped to accept a new tax structure (or possibly new economical model), and the first step is to whip up everyone against the future fodder (wealthy individuals).

The poor spendthrift vagabond says to a rich man:

"I have discovered there is enough money in the world for all of us, if it was equally divided; this must be done, and we shall all be happy together."

"But," was the response, "if everybody was like you, it would be spent in two months, and what would you do then?"

"Oh! divide again; keep dividing, of course!"

titanomachy2• 7 years ago

Ayn Rand is back from the dead, and she's posting on HN!

In all seriousness though, the excesses of certain rich people are pretty gross. I once saw a guy spend $20k (of inherited money) on a fancy showerhead. Kids who go into foster care are 3x more likely to go to prison and unlikely to reach higher education. "Equal opportunity" indeed.

dev_dull3• 7 years ago

Who cares what someone wastes their money on? If you believe a “fool and their money are soon parted” then the only explanation for life-long wealthy people is that they don’t waste it.

There are many problems in our country. Are you doing something personally to make it better, or just attacking others and asking someone else to fix it for you?

djschnei• 7 years ago

"My life was like this, therefore everyone's was." - Jen Doll

nkingsy• 7 years ago

Just adding my data point.

My grandfather gave me a college fund and I went to public college, leaving me with the difference between that and private college. The little nest egg that remained in that account was a weight around my neck. I had many enjoyable experiences in my 20's (eg traveling the world earning a living playing online poker for 3 years), but I felt no urgency to pursue a career.

In my late 20's I spent most of the money attempting to write a novel (living expenses) and gave the rest away. Within months of approaching zero in my bank account, I rediscovered programming, found a career I love and was able to afford children.

My recollections may be colored by history, and I may have just been someone that took a long time to mature, but that's how I feel about it today.

mountainofdeath2• 7 years ago

The one thing that personally really angers me is that many institutions are exponentially harder to break into unless you come from a specific, moneyed background. You basically need to go to an elite preschool, to go to an elite primary school (usually private), to go to an elite secondary school, to get into an elite university, to get into an elite company in an elite sector (consulting, investment banking, arguably SV tech more often than not). To this class of people, spending $60k+ a year*, per child is nothing since they have been spending that much since the child was born. I've met more than a handful of these people that I wonder what, if anything, they learned.

honkycat2• 7 years ago

I like that we keep talking about privilege, no matter how much it irks the hacker news elite. I have a previous comment about this[0], so I will not go into too much detail.

Nobody thinks they are rich or privileged. Now, the Hendersons down the street? THOSE PEOPLE are rich! I feel that people underestimate the huge effect of having a safety net under them.

It is the difference between going to the amazing state school and the local community college.

It is the difference between paying attention and learning in class and sleeping through it because you had to get up at 6 am to work an 8-hour shift.

It is the difference between living in a studio apartment, 45 minutes from school in the bad part of town and living in the beautiful two-bedroom top-floor loft in Logan Square.

It is the difference between a data entry job, and an unpaid research internship with your professors.

It is the difference between sleeping on a couch for 3 months while you look for your first job, and having a place to stay and prepare.

It is the difference between taking the first job you can get, and holding out until you find a better one.

It's the difference between a loan for a house and a loan to your parents to pay off medical debt.

Think about every step, every decision you have made in your life and consider if you would have made the same choices if your life was different.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19098317

fireflash382• 7 years ago

Every time I see privilege come up, people start denying it, or excusing it. Saying things like "I still had to work hard for this!"

It's a tricky subject to talk about, as the article references, specifically because it's hard to differentiate between what you got from privilege and what you got from hard work.

I find analogies best to talk about it. Your goal is to reach the top floor of a building. Some people start at the penultimate floor. Some start on the 2nd floor. Others are in the basement. Every single one takes effort to climb the steps. But some have a big head start, and can even fail down a few floors and still have it easier than other people.

projektfu• 7 years ago

There's very little that's more impertinent than telling an American he didn't earn what he has. Can't speak for other cultures.

plausibilities• 7 years ago

What if I told you it's possible to accept one's privilege while disputing the degree to which it has directly contributed to specific, positive life/professional outcomes?

AlexTWithBeard3• 7 years ago

Sorry for being blunt, but coming from a dirt poor background I've been there and done that. You sound like a really pampered person who cannot imagine living anywhere but in a two bedroom apartment with a maid and on-premises gym.

No, it's not that bad and you can read books equally well in your own apartment or in a public library.

You have a couple of valid points about medical debt, which is a crazy American thing and working while studying, which is tough. The rest though shows a complete lack of understanding how being poor works.

It is the difference between going to the amazing state school and the local community college.

HN is full of anecdotes that professors in the community college are not that much worse. And for the price they are actually AMAZING. Yes, being an Ivy league graduate generally helps. But we're not talking about crazy rich folks here, right?

It is the difference between living in a studio apartment, 45 minutes from school in the bad part of town and living in the beautiful two-bedroom top-floor loft in Logan Square.

Sorry, I'm not getting this one. Yes, living in a two bedroom loft is somewhat nicer, but what does it have to do with studying or working?

It is the difference between a data entry job, and an unpaid research internship with your professors.

Data entry job hands down. A month of real job on resume is worth a year of sitting in the lab and adjusting the thermostat.

It is the difference between taking the first job you can get, and holding out until you find a better one.

Just take the first job you can and keep looking for a better one?

staunch2• 7 years ago

If you use the word "wealth" instead of "privilege" there's not much to argue about.

The problem is that there are many people today (with very dubious motivations) trying to confuse the issue of wealth with other issues. The great divide is today, as it has been since the dawn of civilization, between the people that have money and the people that have-not money.

arendtio2• 7 years ago

Financial help from parents comes in many forms, and it’s the basis of so many success stories. So why do millennials act like it doesn't exist?

Because never before your chances of becoming wealthy without help from your parents were so good? At least that is my impression without knowing any facts.

afpx• 7 years ago

I always thought it was common knowledge that most people 'making a living' on journalism, academia, literature, art, etc. were being subsidized by either their or another's independent wealth.

markvdb• 7 years ago

In some parts of the world, it's very often the other way round: kids financially supporting their parents. Or what would you do when your parents' savings and pension had all disappeared in the collapse of the USSR? That's exactly the scenario some friends of mine are in...

mAEStro-paNDa• 7 years ago

I am not quite sure why the author narrows in on millennials in this piece, this is something happening among varying age groups.

It also appears from my experience on this forum that the prevailing opinion here is that this story is not a myth at all, but I understand there is variance here.

The issue with cost of living is an obvious one that is made in comments here, but that still does nothing to address the individuals/families who _still_ struggle in areas that are much cheaper to live. Yes, the insular view of one who has not lived outside SF is troublesome, but it's dishonest to argue as if there is still not real existing poverty in places with a lower cost of living.

While there are many different ways the socioeconomic status of ones family and upbringing can assist in their own success, there are a myriad of ways in which this is also influenced by systemic features to our society, as well as the historical context of that. Think of racially discriminatory housing policies that have helped lead to wealth gaps in the present.

While rags to riches makes a good story, we also don't talk about failures in business as much as we do the successful enterprises. Referring to individual actions in tandem with family assistance, coming to terms with the subject of meritocracy in our society and individual success, I'd propose we're looking at it the wrong way. The part to evaluate is not how much these things have to do with success, but rather how much can they come back from failure? This paints a rather different picture, as those with more financial security are in a much better position to take risks, make poor decisions, while not being pulled into poverty.

Finally, I'd like to point out that there is a growing skepticism of the liberal world order, the mainstream consensus, status quo, whatever you want to call it. More people are realizing now the varying degrees of ways the system is rigged against common working people. With it comes skepticism of the legitimacy of meritocracy in our current social order. This isn't just coming out of a vacuum.

rocgf• 7 years ago

I am perpetually amazed by how often people feel the need to put a label on something, even if that doesn't _really_ matter.

As far as I have noticed, the self-made "myth" is mainly a media trick. For some reason (maybe intrigue, maybe hope, maybe something else), people love rags to riches stories, be it an immigrant to the US with "five dollars in her pocket", a Bill Gates or an Elon Musk. The people who write those stories don't do it to get the word out, they do it to sell you something, so of course they will try to make it as dramatic as possible.

Now there's a counter-movement to balance things out. Bill Gates was actually born in a wealthy family and had a trust fund with millions in it; taking risks with his company was not really a risk. A lot of people like Cara Delevingne (who is constantly advertised everywhere for some reason) are actually part of a family with big ties in their respective industries. They are not truly self-made, but they are not just propelled to the top without significant amounts of work or talent either. The truth is generally somewhere in the middle, with outliers at both ends.

In the end, does it really matter? I feel like social media is full of either stories like this or people pretending to live a perfect life. In short, things that are unattainable for most people even if they were to live a hundred lives. Dreaming big is a wonderful thing, but it definitely won't pan out for the vast majority of people, while making them less happy in the process. That's just my view, maybe wrong in some aspects.

staunch2• 7 years ago

The term self-made is just too imprecise to be useful. The three major factors involved in an individual's success are:

#1 Genetics - High general intelligence, ambition, etc.

#2 Environment - Highly educated well-off parents, etc.

#3 Opportunity - Support of powerful people, etc.

You probably can't do much without at least one of these factors. Most people that do big things have all three working in their favor.

People like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Peter Theil, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, and Paul Graham had all three.

On the other hand, people like Steve Jobs, John Carmack, Palmer Luckey, and Larry Ellison only had #1 working for them, which is why their success is so much more impressive.

40acres• 7 years ago

Rising inequality and the expansion of the welfare state have transformed "self-made" into an aspiration. Even prior to the gilded age being "self-made" was rare.. only a few people were able to pull themselves up to success. If you want to read an American self-made tale pick up "Up From Slavery".

Anyway, I grew up lower-middle class. My parents were immigrants and we came from the poorest country in the western hemisphere (Haiti) with no generational wealth. I don't consider myself 'self-made', I'd say there was a mix of luck, support from the state (rent control, FAFSA, EITC, etc.) and self directed hard work.

It sounds like to me that the author got some "generational help" and feels like they were not able to capitalize, unlike some of the other profiled in this article. And thus is taking a zero-sum view of the concept of "self-made".

Most parent's would do anything for their kids lives to end up better than theirs did. I won't have any qualms about paying my kids tuition or helping with a down payment when the time comes.

DoreenMichele• 7 years ago

I spent nearly six years homeless. During that time, I basically taught myself to make money online.

I still don't have much, but I'm off the street. I read articles like this and imagine a future where I'm wealthy and powerful and everyone will talk about my privileged background and pooh pooh the idea that I'm self made.

If I ever figure out how to address affordable housing in some meaningful way, no one will laud me as a champion of the poor and downtrodden. No, they will most likely label me a slumlord.

Of course, no one is entirely self made. Of course, it's helpful to know what resources were genuinely involved in actually creating x, y or z. You have no hope of doing something similar if you have what amounts to misinformation about how it got done.

But we value the concept of a self made person because we've all had to fight to be free. We all struggle to take the hand life dealt us and turn it into a thing we desire. We all look to others who somehow accomplished that for clues to find our way into the unmapped future and try to make it a thing we don't loathe overly much.

Gpetrium• 7 years ago

There is a fundamental limitation in the human ability to assess success.

Humans inheritably live in different worlds therefore, their perception of key factors such as self-actualization, esteem, belonging, love, safety & physiological needs will be invariable different.

I would argue that if everyone started out with the same mindset and base opportunities, with time, the environment and its scarcities would cause some to deviate towards being 'richer' and others towards being 'poorer', partially by luck, and partially by other factors within and outside each person's control.

Someone that is self-made will mostly see itself's success as their personal actions and will mostly overestimate that side (E.g. I saved money while my peers were burning it on consumer goods) while others looking from outside will mostly push the (E.g. He was lucky or the environment he was in made him succeed) usually underestimating the person's personal actions.

socrates1998• 7 years ago

Not a great article, but it certainly does illustrate the idea that we are helped to a certain extent.

It's hard to measure one's success accurately.

A $15k loan paid back almost immediately is really nothing in the grand scheme of things, she probably could have gotten a regular loan or at least used some credit cards to float her for it.

A much bigger help was her parents paying for college. THAT's significant.

It meant she knew that starting a business was an option because she could live cheaply after she graduated instead of being forced to get a job.

For the most part, the most successful people in America have been helped significantly by their parents, in my opinion.

Whether it's through paying for an education or networking or outright buying them a business (like a franchise).

Growing up upper-middle class in America puts you way ahead of almost everyone else on the planet as far as advantages goes.

sagartewari01• 7 years ago

Even if it is a myth, it's a myth worth believing.

Why the “Self-Made” Success Story Is a Myth

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